Hulkenberg plays down fifth place practice finish

Nico Hulkenberg is "not reading too much" into his fifth-place finish after the second practice session in Bahrain. 

The German finished the day ahead of both Red Bulls, with Max Verstappen ending the session in sixth and Pierre Gasly failing to make it inside the top ten. 

However, Hulkenberg expects the field to be closer on Saturday, stating that not all teams were running at their optimum on the opening day.

“If a Friday is good I’m not one of those guys who reads into it too much,” said Hulkenberg. “I think other people didn’t reach their full potential today."

However, Hulkenberg admitted that the feeling inside the car wasn't to his liking, suggesting that he too has more time to unlock throughout the remainder of the weekend. 

"Obviously the timesheet looks good, the long run times look okay, but the feeling wasn’t that great in the car to be honest.

“We still were far off with the balance in my opinion. We need to keep working and keep finding some harmony and lap time.”

Hulkenberg's teammate Daniel Ricciardo struggled during the day and ended the second session down in 15th. But Hulkenberg suggested not to read anything into it, believing his time to be non-representative. 

"I don’t think he had the best of laps and had a bit of a struggle this afternoon," he said. "So don’t read too much into it.

“I think it was an okay Friday. We got everything done that we needed to do. Long runs, short runs, got the information on the compounds as usual, that’s important. So now we need to improve on everything for tomorrow and Sunday.”